7 Easy Ways to Winterize Your Bike

In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, winter hits hard: getting over the nearby mountain pass to get into town becomes nearly impossible for trucks, and cars are banned from making the trek without chains. But nestled in the little ski town is the Moots factory, and the people there who help build the company's titanium bikes are avid cyclists, even in negative temperatures. Snow, wind, rain, salt and slush are all par for the course in town, and Nate Bradley, Moots’ production manager, shares a few of his best tips for surviving bad weather on your bike. (Want even more tech tips and advice? Check out the The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance & Repair!)

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Create a Good Bike-Cleaning Setup

Richard Masoner via Flickr

Cleaning your bike regularly in good weather is one thing, but once temperatures drop and the weather gets bad—the time we need to clean our bikes the most—it becomes a Herculean task.

Bradley says his number one tip is preventative action: Create a good bike-washing setup before bad weather strikes so you’re ready. He swears by a cheap pump-action garden sprayer for cleaning off his bike in the garage (with a drain nearby), which can also be done in the driveway post-ride. He also heads to Home Depot for cleaning brushes, and loves grout-cleaning brushes and refrigerator-coil brushes for tight spots.

Your goal here is to get that grime out of moving parts and off your bike's frame as soon as possible: Don’t let it collect.

Can you remove road tar from bike frames? Find out in this video:

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Choose Your Fenders Wisely

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“Full-coverage fenders are great when it rains, but once it’s frozen, they’ll fail,” says Bradley. “They’re the worst thing you could use, because they end up working as full coverage tire brakes.”

Because of that, Bradley uses a clip-on fender for snowy weather instead, since it’s easier to move and empty once it’s jammed with snow.

Cooking Spray Is Your Friend

Mike Mozart via Flickr

It's not just for triathletes who need to shed wetsuits fast: Pam spray is a favorite of cyclocrossers, and if you're unfamiliar with using it outside the kitchen, it'll become your new best friend this winter. Bradley uses cooking sprays like Pam as undercoats for cleats and his metal frame, which make wiping off grime easier. It also gives the bike a bit of a buffer from the elements. (Just don’t get it on disc brakes or wheel rims for cantilever bikes.)

He also recommends a silicone spray on pedals, or for really brutal conditions, he’ll use DuPont's snow and ice repellent made for snowblowers on his cassette and downtube.

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Lube it Up

For extreme circumstances, you might need to get more serious. Bar and chain lube was designed to be used on chainsaws, but for truly muddy, snowy roads, it's a good go-to for your bike's chain. “Bike lubes can’t handle the worst of the worst,” says Bradley. Bar and chain lube will wear out your bike chain faster though, so Bradley says you should only use it in the worst of conditions. (Since grit and snow exposure will likely shorten your chain’s life anyway, though, a more extreme lube won’t really hurt.)

Get Your Tires Dialed

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In really bad weather, studded tires are great, but there are plenty of softer rubber-compound tires with winter treads.

Bradley’s top picks are cyclocross file-tread tires. “They usually have nice rubber, and nice casings, and they work great in deep winter,” he says. The file tread is ideal because the treads on the sides offer traction in bad conditions, but the main tread rolls almost as smooth as road tires.

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Even more important than tread, Bradley says, is choosing the right tire pressure. If you can, run your pressure on the lower end of what you're comfortable with, he says: “You want the tire to move around and conform to grip the frozen surfaces."

Be Mindful of Your Lights

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Lights can be adversely affected when temperatures drop because they depend on batteries, which work best in certain temperature ranges. Bradley avoids his lights going out on his morning commute by mounting his taillight to his backpack and his headlight to his helmet; that stuff stays inside with you during the day, so the batteries don’t drain as fast.

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